Yesterday the Maine House passed LD 944, An act to ban Native American mascots in all schools by a large margin, 88-54.
Associated Press picked up the story which I saw in U.S. News & World Report including this local news:
The Maine Education Department has urged schools to refrain from using mascots and logos depicting Native Americans. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and several tribal leaders have said Skowhegan's former mascot "Indians" harmed Native Americans.
The school retired the nickname last month.
The action on this bill now moves to the Maine Senate.
Senate Democrats have an easy to use contact form for each senator. You can copy and paste your message into each senator's contact form to save time. The vote in the House was largely along party lines, with the notable exception of Democrat Rep. Betty Austin of Skowhegan who not only voted against the bill but spoke against it prior to voting.
Austin came out in favor of local control. Folks who know her call her a "nice lady" who was once their children's bus driver. Several have noted that she was under "a lot of pressure" which I'm pretty sure means she has been harassed and threatened by Skowhegan I#$%*# Pride members who have been doing the same to me and my sister since we spoke publicly in favor of retirement.
SIP will be on hand Thursday night for a school board meeting which will consider their request to hold referendums in the six towns of the district, MSAD 54. The meeting at 7pm at the Skowhegan Area Middle School will consider a petition submitted with allegedly thousands of unverified signatures asking for a referendum to overturn the March 7 vote to "respectfully retire" the mascot.
It is unlikely the board will vote to undermine their own authority by holding a non-binding referendum on a topic they have thoroughly researched and considered before rendering their decision. On January 8 they listened for three hours at a public forum on the mascot (video of that meeting can be seen here).
Supporters of a new sports name/nickname/mascot are asked to wear red as a show of silent solidarity with the March 7 decision.
I wish I was home so I could attend wearing Red, I won't be back home until next week from visiting my father out west. Another excellent article Lisa.
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